Crazy stuff. Hard to think back, but xF was actually -NF- before xF was even thought of.

We played CS 1.6 for the most part. DarkSlayer and Rupture were with me along with a bunch of other folks. I'd say this was 2003?

-NF- = No Fear
xF |:. = Xero Fire

In 2005 we decided that NF was too popular of a tag, along with "No Fear"... so, to better distance ourselves from the ever popular NF - we came up with xF for Xero Fire.

About 12 days in from the founding of xF, we registered XFCLAN.COM.Jan 21, 2005.

xF became a CSS clan. CSS released a few months prior, and we were all happy to hop into this new, updated graphics game. I think I even had to buy a new video card on my 533 Mhz machine.

I've always been on the server/tech side of things, and one day DarkSlayer gave me a call and said that he wants to get into CSS Zombiemod servers... A few hours later, we had a CSS Zombiemod server up with 24 slots.

Within days that Zombiemod server was 24/24, 24 hours a day. We sold reserved slots, admin, and accepted donations. That server became 32 slots. It was 32/32 instantly upon restart. I remember having to login to console to kick a random player just so that I could get in. As soon as random player was kicked, someone else would take that slot. It was madness.

We added 3 more 32 slot Zombiemod servers. I even added one of those to the EU region. Full. All day. All night. This was in a matter of a couple of months after opening the initial Zombiemod server. We were ecstatic.

Throughout that time we grew xF. Tick Tock Man was a regular, along with NewName, Warhawk, KG4WXW, Brian(who was just born?), Motoman, xBabyx, Sha Sha, DieHard, Gizere, Demon Slayer, Sand -- and so many others that I cannot remember. A few of these folks are still around.

2007 came around with OrangeBox. OrangeBox killed all of our server mods. It was devastating. I think xF sort of died here.

Revival

A year goes by, and TickTockMan started the xF Revival. I think they even wore xFR - Revival tags. I hopped in, we restarted xF and xfclan.com.

Zombiemod had fixes for OrangeBox, and I think we fooled around with that for a while. Then we got into Hosties. Hosties was fun, and TickTockMan had a lot of fun with the mods for that game. Maybe too much fun? We had a very popular CSS Hosties server.

This past decade, xF has been dead. Half to my mismanagement, half to the economy. Lot of folks had a change of lifestyle during the economic downturn, and had to change their priorities. I noticed a lot of folks not signed on to Steam anymore during this time. Was sad. My mismanagement was due to my job taking me around the world. I had no time.

The Uprising

Well, here we are again in 2018. TickTockMan sent me a random text about Gin and something about restarting xF. Oddly enough, I have been wanting to do something with xF. Why the hell not?

A few legacy xF folks have popped their heads into there to say hello. I appreciate that. Come play? If you are legacy, please feel free to wear our tag.
A lot of folks have come over from DGN... I cannot wait to game with you guys. Thanks for joining us in this adventure.

On the server side, I wanted to do this relaunch right. Initially I wanted to throw our servers into the "Cloud", which would enable one-click scalability. Didn't work out performance wise.
We're running a powerful node with SSDs in Texas. Our FastDL server is on a CDN. This means fast downloads, worldwide, of server content.

Man, oh man... The glory days of xF are ones I still remember and have fostered relations with these people that still last to this day.

I remember joining when xF was still freshly rebranded and deploying the first of it's zombie survival maps. Lila Panic, Little City, Atix... These were the maps that garnered the most popularity. I remember having to queue for these 64 slot servers and hope I could get in. I remember actually buying a reserved slot because my friends and I became invested in the server. Over time, I gained the respect of Sha Sha, I believe, show forwarded me to trying for an admin role. During this time, I had been running my own GMod servers, specifically helping with a RealRP fork and keeping it alive. I was able to help bring these skills over to xF and help maintain what I still consider to be some of the most successful servers of their time for zombie survival. I remember having to continue spooling instances because all our 64 slot servers would be filled with 20+ in queue. I remember that it was almost like another job, keeping the servers in line and making sure people enjoyed their time on the server as much as I had.

As Patton had put, I also remember when Orange Box was released with the new engine. I remember our mods all breaking and the mod makers having to completely rewrite their mods from scratch. I remember the slow, agonizing decline. Our community dwindled and left the core members, those who were devoted to xF and considered each member like family. I was in college at this point and found solace with the remaining members in other games, but it just wasn't the same.

Years passed and so did most of my relations with the clan. xF was a tag we wore in remembrance of the good times, but not for creating anew. I can't wait to see what xF will turn into, given the proper attention and care, and hope I can again be of use in facilitating it's growth.